Beautifully Dark Places
Chapter 10
Prisoner of War
I jogged to the door as Nolan ran up the stairs to his room to get his battle gear. The sky had darkened to a burnt orange color, and the clouds had turned to silhouettes in the light. Boris was standing outside on the sidewalk, throwing lightning bolts from his yellow and purple staff. I watched as he fought the giant, two headed dog that stood at the end of the sidewalk. Nolan's footsteps echoed from the stairwell. He appeared beside me in his fighting gear.
"Stay inside." He said before rushing out to stand beside Boris. The strange dog howled up at the sky, and then both of its heads snapped down at the boys. Fear clenched my stomach as its jaws clenched together right beside Nolan's head. Boris smacked his staff on the ground, sending tiny tendrils of lightning across the ground at the beast. Nolan gave Boris a rather uneasy look and drew the sword he bought a few days prior. The lightning gave the beast pause, but nothing more. The dog stomped the ground, sending cracks across it. Nolan stabbed his sword into the ground and kneeled behind it. Boris, on the other hand, was sent flying backwards and landed at my feet at the door.
"Are you ok?" I asked quickly, he looked up at me from under his snow white hair and nodded. He used his staff to push him up. Nolan had stood back up from behind his sword and watched as Boris approached the battle. The Diviner's robe was ripped across his chest, where a cut seeped blood onto his purple robes. He looked at Nolan with a panicked look.
"I heal you," He whispered, "Finish him off." Boris nodded to him. He twirled his staff above his head in an intricate pattern, and slammed it against the ground. Lightning gathered above the dog's head, and struck it in the head. It whimpered, and fell over on its side. I watched as Nolan tapped his sword in the air and a strange blue and silver light trickled down on Boris. The cut on his chest healed almost instantly.
"A-Are you guys O-ok?" Malorn appeared at behind the dog, he leaned over on the fence to catch his breath. Nolan looked at him and nodded.
Nolan looked back at the dog. "A powerful Conjurer cast this, but how did they summon something without bringing a child from Earth?"
Boris shrugged, "Maybe that only happens to the Myths on our side." He shook his head. "I haven't seen anyone cast this that wasn't at least a master."
"There's Scarecrows and Wraiths running around here too. I saw a Snow Angel attack a few novices. We have to help everyone, they attacked our weakest place." Malorn looked back at the city, amongst the chaos one could pick out a few horses and strange pumpkin things. I watched as Malorn took off into the fray, Boris at his heels, and Nolan turned back to me.
"Stay inside."
"What? No." I laughed and started down the stairs to the sidewalk. "If they can run around and hurt Novices than what will stop them from getting inside the house?"
He stared in my eyes for a few minutes. "Stay close; you have no armor and no training." He turned and walked out of his yard. I kept close to him as he ducked between a few phoenixes and a large grim-reaper-like creature. There was a couple of Apprentices standing before a huge elephant in strange armor. It lashed out at them with a hooked sword. Nolan scanned the area. There was a group of kids that couldn't have been in Ravenwood for more than a few days battling a large fiery bird. Nolan looked between the two groups, and looked back at me with panic in his eyes.
"What do I do?"
I bit my lip, and pointed to the apprentices. "Help them," He nodded, motioned for me to stay put, and ran to the aid of the young wizards. I found myself headed for the three new kids against the fire bird. I wondered why things didn't attack me when I was standing so close, but as I stepped next to the kid on the end, I felt like I had crossed an invisible line. Like a boundary.
"Are you guys ok?" I asked quickly. The three kids looked at me and nodded.
The boy on the end opposite looked at me. "We've barely got our wands before these guys showed up."
The girl in the middle agreed with him: "Yeah, is this normal? Like is this a test to see if we're really our class?"
I sighed, "I have no idea what this is, but it's not a test. It's real. Can anyone cast anything?"
The boy beside me grinned as his silver hair fell into his face, "I can. I'm a balance."
"I can put shields on us…" The girl whispered, as if the bird could hear. Just as she finished her sentence, the bird reared back and, with a mighty caw, breathed fire out at us. It struck the boy on the end opposite me, and he hit the ground. I started toward him, but realized there was nothing I could do but keep the others alive.
What are you doing? Nolan's voice echoed in my head. I sighed and focused all of my energy on the bird. I raised my hands, hoping I could do something. The bird reared back again. I braced myself for the impact of the fire, and closed my eyes. The burn never came, and instead, I heard the kids beside me cheering. I blinked, and looked up to see Malorn holding his sword out at the bird, which now lay dead on the ground. I lowered my hands and sighed.
"Thanks." I muttered. He patted my shoulder.
"You need a wand; it takes a lot of practice to cast without one."
"What were you thinking? You could have gotten killed!" Nolan's sharp voice came from behind us. He was stomping toward our little group. He took his helmet off as he approached us, and tossed it aside on the ground. A few novices saw it and flocked to it in wonder. His eyes silted at me in anger. "What did I tell you?"
"to-"
"I told you to stay put. Not run over here and help a couple of new kids. You can't cast spells; you don't know how to. I was in the middle of a fight, and you just ran over here where I couldn't do anything to protect you. What were you thinking?" Nolan was furious. He sighed and grabbed my face in his hands. "I don't want to lose you."
"I didn't want them to get hurt." I whispered. He shook his head and pulled me closer to him for a hug.
"Thank you, Ashthorn." He whispered to Malorn, who was standing behind us with the unconscious boy.
"She's my friend." He said as Nolan let go of me. "This kid needs Wu."
"I can take hi-"
"No, Nolan." Malorn sighed, gathering the boy in his arms. "Most of these are Death, I can't kill them."
"Guys!" Boris jogged up to us. A boy with fair skin, soft purple eyes and messy sandy hair was walking beside him with a gate that matched Boris's. He smiled at us, and jumped a little as an elephant creature stomped beside us.
"Boris!" Malorn laughed, "Stephen! Everyone's here!"
"Most of the summons have been killed, thanks to Stephen here, but I haven't seen anyone one here that's a high enough level to cast all these." Boris looked around, tapping his staff on the ground impatiently. Stephen walked over to the boy Malorn was holding and whispered something I couldn't hear. The boy gasped and blinked back to consciousness.
"Thank you," The boy breathed quickly. The sandy hair boy smiled and nodded to him. I looked around. Wizard City looked destroyed. The library had smoke billowing out of it, the bridge over the stream that fed the lake was broken, the statue in the middle of the little lake had been broken in several places, and the headmaster's house had been severely damaged. Witches and wizards of all ages slowly poured out of the different places they had been hiding. People in green robes were running around healing the random people who lay passed out on the grass.
"Who would do this?" I asked in a whisper. Everyone looked so frightened; even Ambrose and the other professors who were trying to calm everyone else down looked nervous. Nolan grabbed my hand, but he said nothing. We all stood in silence, watching the apprentices and novices watch us. I knew they were wondering what happened, and to be honest, so was I.
A scream split the air.
Ryan tumbled out of Unicorn Way with a girl about our age yelling furiously at her. Ryan jumped out of the way as a fireball flew past her head. The girl glared at her, blue eyes set a flame with anger. She threw her hand up, and fire erupted from it. Ryan dodged this fire too, and tackled the girl. Nolan and Malorn ran to help Ryan wrestle the girl.
The girl had a heavy, almost Transylvanian, accent: "Unhand me you pathetic-"
"Shut up." Ryan rolled her eyes at the girl. Ambrose hurried over to them, whispered something, and then motioned for Boris, Stephen, and I to follow them to his office.
Ambrose's office was dark. Boris, Nolan, and Malorn had tied the girl to a chair. Her head hung, covered by a red hood that hid everything but the end of her black hair. Her red tunic was wet from sweat and tears of her escape attempts. The fingerless—you guessed it, red—gloves had been soaked in water by Boris, who swore it would keep her from shooting fire at whoever was watching her. The sound of her black drake tattooed dragonscale boots tapping on the hardwood floor still echoed throughout the room.
I had volunteered to watch her with Nolan, mostly so he could sleep. He had refused the bed I was sitting on and slept on the floor in the corner of the room. It was cold in here, which was my attempt to keep the girl from burning the entire room down. He had taken most of his armor off, probably because it was so uncomfortable. I smiled, he had worn the t-shirt I found at my house for him underneath his armor. The girl stirred.
I sighed, grabbed the covers off of the bed I was on, and walked over to Nolan. It was about to get brutally cold, and he seriously needed to stay warm. I shook him gently.
"Hey, Nolan?"
"Err-w…whaa?" He mumbled half-opening one eye to look at me. I pulled at his arm.
"Come on," He groaned and pushed himself off the floor. I helped him over to the bed and covered him up with the blanket.
"I… I told you to…to take the bed…" He fretted. I smiled and smoothed his hair down.
"It's going to get cold. Go to sleep." I whispered, he blinked up at me through his dazzling blue eyes. He looked so much like a little kid when he was sleepy. He lifted his hand up to my face, and traced my jaw line.
"Are you sure you don't need," He yawned, "sleep?"
I nodded and smiled at him, "Yeah, it doesn't take a lot of energy to keep this place below freezing."
As if alerted by the temperature, he pulled the blanket closer to him. "She awake?"
"No, she passed out after you did." I laughed, playing with the buttons on my shirt.
He held his arm out. "Sleep."
"I can't; I have to watch her Nolan."
"No," He whined. "You need to sleep, I'll watch her."
"Nolan," I laughed, "What is five plus two?"
"Twenty-four?"
"Go to sleep." He smiled at me, and then close his eyes. It literally took about five minutes for him to fall asleep. I smooth his hair down. A noise from the middle of the room made me look up. The girl was staring at me, her ash black hair partially falling into her eyes as she grinned.
"Look at the two love birds." Her accent made some of her words a little hard to understand. Her wide grin was too much on her small face, and it made her look impossibly creepy. I stood up beside the bed.
"Who are you?"
She laughed. "Do you people only know three questions to ask? Come on, you've been asking the same thing for hours." She sighed dramatically. "No 'hello, how's your day?' or 'how have you been?' or maybe even a 'you've been tied up for a while, would you like a beverage? Food?'"
I glared at her. "I don't offer drinks to people who destroyed our city."
She raised an eyebrow, "You think I did all that," she nodded to the entrance of Ambrose's office, "single handed?" She let out a maniacal laugh. I let the room temperature drop about ten degrees. She shivered, but her smirk held strong. I walked over to her, pushed her hood off so she couldn't hide behind it, and grabbed her forearms.
"Who are you working with?"
She grinned. I sunk my finger nails into her skin. Pain only showed in her eyes, and she covered that quickly. "I am working with the best wizards in the Spiral."
"What are their names?"
She laughed, "I'm not going to tell you." I sunk my nails farther into her skin. "But, I will tell you that I will get out of this chair, and when I do, I will kill him and I will make you watch every. Last. Second." I smacked her across the face. She laughed again and just leaned back comfortably in her chair. "You don't understand, do you? They will come for me, and when they do I will find all of you, and I will kill each of you slowly, and I'll save you for last."
Wonderfullllll job on the OCs you guys. NightSkyWolves's character is the one I picked, she fit best into the story and was perfectly written, so I loved her. I might grab another one of the OCs from you guys, it just depends on what I need. Well, review and review! It's what keeps me writing this!